Session 9 (2001)

Old movie - short entry: "Session 9" is an example of a horror movie in the real sense of a horror, not the typical action disguised as a horror = lots of blood, screams and a stupid subject. It's not exactly "It Follows", but I think that in the last two and a half years I didn't see anything else that transpired such a tense feeling as I've got here. The movie was shot in a place that seems to actually be a former closed asylum left to decay, Danvers State Asylum, a building that I guess beats any other in a top of creepy/haunted places I've seen in a movie. And yes, that counts also the Overlook Hotel in Shining... The story starts relatively simple - a crew of 5 men working as a team of cleaning/decontamination for asbestos constructions is contracted to take care of the mentioned building. As a detail, the team leader offers an apparently impossible time of a week for getting the job done to secure the contract. Things go obviously bad ... and again obviously we have something bad in the building. The action follows a sort of classic development, day by day, which is one of the aspects that seem to lose its sense since we only get to Friday (well, seems I gave a spoiler...). What's nice is that each character is really carefully constructed, the script exploiting very well the more or less obvious personal fears. That's actually so well done that (again...) I reached the conclusion that I probably got too old for psychological horrors, the everyday life stress is enough. What's not that nice is that the movie, an indie, feels a bit unpolished leaving a lot to the viewer to figure out. Including that "something bad" from above, at least partially - although the fact that we don't have a solid clarification contributes on making the movie more real, and implicitly more scary. But, enough spoilers :) ...

Rating: 3 out of 5